


Constant Cravings

by fictorium (orphan_account)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 21:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina is very pregnant. Emma is at her beck and call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I have three words for you,” Emma announces, holding her bag up in triumph. “Mint. Choc. Chip.”

“Did you make it by hand?” Regina snipes, glaring from the throne of cushions she’s constructed for herself on the bed. Henry walks past the bedroom door at that moment, safely behind Emma.

“I can’t believe you were actually dumb enough to come back,” he says, shaking his head. Emma could come back at him with teasing about his too-long hair or the girl they keep catching him walking home from school with, but it’s not like a fifteen year old boy listens to his parents anyway. 

“Keep moving, kid,” is all she says, determined that there will be no casualties in this war but herself.

“Well?” Regina snaps, waggling the fingers on one hand in impatience. Emma looks at the ring studded with diamonds on the fourth finger and reminds herself that it’s really too late to run now. “Am I expected to levitate the tub over here? Or have you forgotten that I can’t do magic anymore?”

Some things don’t every stop being weird, Emma has to admit, and Regina’s casual references to a life left behind are just some of them. It’s taken five years of fighting and tears and confessions and love to get to a place where they can all live with who Regina truly is. 

And to top it all off, now they’re bringing a miniature version of her into the world. In about three weeks, if the doctors know their stuff (Emma hopes for their sake that they do; she can’t see Regina taking delays or complications well).

“Baby,” Emma soothes. “I’ve got what you need right here. Be patient.”

Regina grumbles to herself as she adjusts her very pregnant body into a more comfortable position. This, at least, Emma is sympathetic about. Henry was a summer baby and the discomfort drove her halfway out of her mind.

Not wanting to provoke Regina further, Emma drops her jacket on the floor and slides onto the bed beside her wife. Regina, naturally, snatches the carton the moment Emma produces it and takes a huge spoonful like her very existence depends on it.

“Thanks,” she grudgingly concedes after about half has disappeared. Emma says nothing, content to have made Regina happy again for a while, stroking her (now much longer) dark hair that’s tied back loosely with a ribbon to keep it off her face. She looks like the fairytale character she is (although perhaps not so regal with smeared chocolate chips on her lips.

“I love you,” Emma whispers, because even now she finds it hard to say those words too loudly, too publicly. She waits, as ever, to have them thrown back in her face—not because Regina is the person who deserves them, but because with Emma the expectation for love is always loss. Regina licks her lips slowly and then kisses Emma, cool and sticky and sweet to the touch. 

“Here,” Regina says, offering the next spoonful. “I have no greater love to offer you than a tiny bit of this ice cream.”

“Wow,” Emma deadpans. “You really have got it bad.”

It’s true, she realizes with a swell of happiness in her chest. Regina doesn’t share. Regina used to take and take but now (as she always has with Henry) Regina sees Emma and she wants to give, too. If Regina lost everything for love in another life, in this one she’s willing to lose almost anything just to keep it. It’s that knowledge that lets Emma sleep through the night for the first time in her life, and what allowed her to conjure up an existence with marriage contracts and the commitment of a child they’ll share right from the start. It’s what allows her to keep overcoming this fear that wells up whenever she says ‘I love you’, because somehow and some way, Regina will keep saying it back.

“Am I really so terrible?” Regina asks. “This damn baby…”

“Don’t talk about our daughter that way,” Emma teases. “Or she’ll turn out just like you.”

“You say that like you would want it any other way,” Regina huffs, polishing off the rest of her melting ice cream. 

“I’m not sure how the world will cope with two of you, you know,” Emma replies, pulling Regina closer once the carton has been put aside.

“It can only be an improvement,” Regina says, resting her head on Emma’s chest and sighing in a way that says she’s content.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly how Emma feels too.


	2. Previously on...

“We could always have another kid, you know,” Emma says, trying to find an end to this ridiculous conversation before she has to get up for work in the morning. “But the important thing is we both keep working on our relationships with Henry.”

“Oh please,” Regina scoffs. “Our little family in unconventional enough as it is.”

“You think of us as a family?” Emma asks, choking back sudden tears. 

“Oh for God’s sakes,” Regina huffs, rolling over to face the window.

“I mean, I know Henry is cool with it,” Emma says over shuddering little sobs. “Even if the kids do tease him for having two moms. And call him a gaymo.”

“They what?” Regina spits, rolling right back over with her eyes blazing. 

“Easy, tiger. You can’t go around beating up thirteen year-olds. Or cursing them, for that matter,” Emma warns.

“I won’t ask Gold for another favor,” Regina says huffily, getting back to the original topic. “Besides, I want to try carrying a child for myself. It can’t be that hard if you managed it.”

“Wow, lucky I’m not in this for the compliments, huh?” Emma asks, still suffused with joy from Regina’s earlier confession. “You really want to try?”

“Yes,” Regina says quite simply.

“Okay,” Emma sighs. “Now, for the love of God, will you let me get some sleep?”

*

Emma can’t resist the next day, knowing that Regina is out at some ribbon-cutting ceremony. She picks out the ribbons in blue and in pink and wraps them around the gift picked up from the closest thing Storybrooke has to a department store. Emma’s used to getting strange looks since the town found out about her living with Regina, but she just casually touches the badge at her belt and the staring stops.

Regina calls about three minutes after getting back to the office.

“What. Is. This?” She hisses down the phone, knowing only one person would have dared come into her empty office.

“It’s a turkey baster, sweetie. I thought you’d better start getting to know each other a little better.”

*

The sulk is a short one by Regina’s standards—three days in total. Emma wonders if she’s put Regina off the idea of another kid until a bunch of brochures appear on her desk at the station. All of them have cute baby pictures and fonts that just scream this will cost a fortune. At last, Emma understands the downside of Regina now being free to leave Storybrooke.

There’s also a scary-looking catalog, where each page has a long number at the top and then a bunch of biographical detail underneath. Emma’s willing to bet FBI profilers use the same model, and that’s just plain creepy.

She waits until dinner that night (Henry is eating at his friend Stevie’s house, something Regina has started to relent on lately, too). 

“So,” Emma asks. “Any early favorites in the list?”

“I put Post-Its against the ones I thought would be suitable,” Regina says off-handedly, and Emma flicks through the catalog more carefully to discover that it is the case. She’s kind of touched that Regina has had the sensitivity to pick guys whose coloring matches Emma’s own - it feels like she gets to be involved.

“I like this one,” Emma offers, finding a blonde-haired and green-eyed guy that Regina hasn’t marked.”

“No,” Regina says, turning her nose up in disgust.

“Why not?”

“He’s a carpenter,” Regina huffs. Because naturally everyone she’s picked out is a doctor or something.

“What’s wrong with that?” Emma demands. “Jesus was a carpenter!”

“If you’re not going to take this seriously…” Regina warns, grabbing for the paperwork.

“No, I will,” Emma says, smirking. “But I really think we should practice a lot.”

“Practice what?” Regina asks, looking puzzled. It’s adorable and still somehow a little scary, Emma notices with a goofy grin.

“Making babies,” Emma says, completely deadpan. “You know, sex?”

“But—”

“Regina, do you want to get laid tonight or not?” Emma snaps, exasperated. Regina has many things that Emma enjoys, but a compatible sense of humor is not often one of them.

“Well, yes,” Regina answers, trying to appear unaffected. 

She’s plenty affected by the time Emma has her naked and squirming right there on the dinner table.

*

It takes three separate conversations to talk Henry out of coming to the clinic with them. Eventually it’s Regina’s horrified expression that tips him off—he was smart enough to only bug Emma the first two times he asked.

“Promise me one thing,” he says, fiddling with the straps of his backpack. Henry’s going to school and then Emma is driving Regina to her appointment.

“What’s that kid?” Emma asks, jingling her keys impatiently.

“You two won’t… you know… love me any less will you?”

Regina reacts first, gathering Henry up in the kind of hug he usually resists. “Of course not,” Regina says, emphatically. She kisses the top of Henry’s head. “Of course not.”

“Ugh,” Henry says, pulling away (but he’s grinning that sly little grin of his). “Oh, and if they can test for it—get the baby screened for the ‘too much hugging’ gene.”

“There’s no baby yet, Henry,” Emma reminds him. But there’s a flutter in her stomach that’s got something to do with Regina’s calm certainty that this will work.

“There will be,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Mom said she wants it. And you know what happens when Mom wants something.”

*

Regina rejects the offer to ride home upside down, with her legs sticking out of the sunroof. Emma thinks it would have made a great visual—maybe the opening shot in a Baby Book.

They have to wait a few days before taking the test, and between Regina’s compulsions and Emma’s forgetfulness, they have eight separate pregnancy tests to choose from when the day rolls around.

“Can I at least do the peeing part on my own?” Regina sighs. “I promise not to look at the stick without you.”

“Fine. I’m just jealous,” Emma confesses. Regina’s look prompts her to explain. “You’re doing this in a bathroom that Architectural Digest has wet dreams about, and you’re hoping for a positive just as much as your loving partner is. That’s me, by the way.”

“And?” Regina presses, and Emma can picture the eye roll even through the closed bathroom door.

“And the last time I did this was in a gas station bathroom, praying for a negative like you wouldn’t believe,” Emma says, because even knowing Henry now doesn’t change those facts.

“So we’re lucky,” Regina says, coming out of the bathroom and gingerly handing Emma the stick. “Well?”

Emma stares at the stick hard, and for a minute she can’t actually speak.

“Oh, we’re lucky alright,” she confirms. Regina snatches the stick back, because why would she ever take anyone’s word for anything? 

“Oh,” Regina says, with a smile warm enough to banish winter. “Look what we did.”

“Don’t think this makes me your servant for the next nine months,” Emma chides, leaning across to kiss Regina.

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Regina says, eyes glinting dangerously. Emma groans.


	3. Surprise

“Kid, are you sure—”

“Yes!” Henry snaps, because if there’s one thing he is completely over? It’s being asked the same question fourteen times in an hour. Having two Moms really does double up on the nagging sometimes, no matter how cool Emma can be.

“It’s just that your Mom has probably had a long day. And the second trimester is easier, sure, but…”

“Mo-ther,” Henry mocks. He only calls Emma that to annoy her, but even that doesn’t snap her out of it.

“She definitely likes chocolate cake, right? I mean, it’s not too rich for her?”

“You’re right, let’s just call the whole thing off,” Henry says, smiling across the room at Ava. 

“What?” Emma asks, but the room goes silent as car headlights sweep across the front of the house.

“Sssh!” Someone hisses, unnecessarily. Emma looks around the semi-dark room, pleased at the turnout. A few people have stayed away, because un-cursing a whole town isn’t without its problems, but Emma’s one-woman campaign to have Storybrooke forgive their Mayor has clearly paid off. She exchanges a nervous smile with Ruby, and then the front door is opening.

“Surprise!” The cheer goes up, uncoordinated and full of echoes and overlapping voices, but it stops Regina in her tracks. For a split-second she looks terrified, and Emma catches it, kicking herself for what Regina probably thinks any time she sees an assembled mob. Why not go the whole hog and have them wait on the lawn with burning torches and pitchforks, Emma thinks, but the look flickers away and Regina actually looks kind of pleased after a moment.

“Oh,” she says. “What’s all this?”

“Happy birthday, Mom,” Henry says, crossing the foyer to hug her. He’s been a little weird around Regina since the slight baby bump started to show, but he doesn’t let it stop him tonight.

“Happy birthday!” The ragged chorus goes up, and people raise their glasses (mostly so they can take a drink from them). Somewhere, the music starts up and Emma finds herself relaxing at last.

Regina works through the flurry of greetings, shaking hands and accepting a few hugs (including Kathryn, who hugs her twice. Emma would be jealous if she didn’t know better). Before long she’s worked her way to the foot of the staircase, where Emma is waiting, glass of ginger ale in hand.

“Happy birthday, Madam Mayor,” Emma says, capturing Regina’s lips in a heartfelt kiss. 

“Trying to impress me, Sheriff?” Regina mocks, but she sips her ginger ale quite contentedly when Emma hands it to her. “Or are you just trying to get laid tonight?”

“No reason I can’t do both,” Emma says with a shrug. “There’s cake, too.”

“Please tell me it’s chocolate,” Regina pleads. “I’ve been fantasizing about really good chocolate cake all week.”

“Hey!” Emma pouts, her heart surging at getting something so important right. “I thought I was the object of your fantasies.”

“To use your logic,” Regina smirks. “There’s no reason I can’t have both. Together.”

“Really regretting the house full of people right about now,” Emma groans. 

“We have all night,” Regina reminds her, hand drifting unconsciously to her stomach. Emma wants to touch, too, but she also remembers how intrusive it was to have everyone treating you like public property. Regina must catch her staring, though, because she takes Emma’s hands and presses it beneath her own.

“She’ll be kicking soon,” Regina murmurs, and in that moment it’s like they’re the only two people in the world, never mind the room.

“You don’t know it’s a girl yet,” Emma reminds her. 

“I know,” Regina sighs. “Now, let’s go find that cake you’re teasing me with.”

“Your wish is my command,” Emma replies, leading the way through the assembled townspeople.


End file.
